


Team

by olivemartini



Series: the heavy hearts we hold together [4]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 17:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11559591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: When Reid comes back, it feels like she's part of the team, as if she crossed the line between being around something great and being a part of something.





	Team

It feels like team on the day when they're all finally back, with Morgan tugging on her hair and JJ showing her pictures of the kids and Rossi looking at her with that paternal affection he seems to show towards anyone under forty.  It's a good thing, to finally cross that line from being around something great to actually being a  _part_ of it, even if it means that she goes home with the reminders of old ghosts and new nightmares.  

There's also Reid, limping around the bull pen and showing up in her office even when he doesn't really need anything, pulling her out for team bonding when she  mistakenly thinks it might be easier to go home and deal with her demons alone (though the team is right, it's easier to drown them in alcohol than bad tv), and inviting her back to his house for dinner that she inevitably ends up cooking because the guy doesn't seem to need anything other than caffeine to keep going.  

"Be safe," Beatrice tells this to all of them before they walk out of that little conference room where she knows they are safe and board that plane to go where they are in danger, but it seems like every time she says it, it begins to be directed at Reid a little bit more.  She thinks he knows, because he has to know that she needs to come back.  It's already become a thing with her, to expect him to come back a little tired and little bit more worn down but basically unharmed, even though she can well remember what it means to have everything in your life change in an instant, for no other reason that some man had a sick need to cause other people pain in place of feeling their own.

"I will,"  He promises, and it's something he says through his little smiles, and the way he's started to come over to her apartment after tough cases to reassure her that everything's okay (or maybe reassure himself), and the coffee he brings her in the morning even though she's perfectly fine with drinking the watered down stuff the bureau provides them.

Beatrice still isn't sure that she likes this job.  She doesn't like being confined to her tiny room, with only Garcia's trinkets and the greenish glow of the computer screen there to keep her company, and unable to leave long enough just to feel the sunlight soak into her skin like she does at home when she gets hard to breathe.  And she doesn't like that she's picked up on all the old habits she had tricked herself into thinking she should forget, where she always has 911 tapped into her phone when she walks through parking lots and she double checks the locks on her doors at night and keeps the safety off her pepper spray to have the fastest reaction time.  She also looks over her shoulder whenever she walks down the street and has to fight the urge to look into the closet for monsters that like to hide in the darkness. And sometimes she loses against the fight and checks anyways, then drags the covers off the bed to go sleep in the bathtub where she knows there's no where for scary men to hide, and texts Reid meaningless things until she finally manages to fall asleep.

"I'm glad you're here,"  Morgan tells her one day, when they're all at Rossi's for dinner and he's pouring her what might be her third glass of very expensive wine.  "Not that I don't miss Garcia, but you're a good fit for us."

"Yeah,"  She says, warmed by the thought that they feel like she fits here too, and it wasn't just in her head.  Beatrice turns toward the burst of laughter that interrupted the quiet, and sees Reid leaning against JJ, his fly away hair mixing with her bright blonde where their heads are bent together.  "I'm glad I'm here too."

This time, it doesn't even feel like a lie. 


End file.
